presence

When Time-Warner announced it planned to merge with another major communications firm, many feared the new company would exercise near-total monopoly power. These concerns led some to call for government action to block the merger in order to protect both Time-Warner's competitors and consumers.

No, I am not talking about Time-Warner’s recent announced plan to merge with AT&T, but the reaction to Time-Warner’s merger with (then) Internet giant AOL in 2000. Far from creating an untouchable leviathan crushing all competitors, the AOL-Time-Warner merger fell apart in under a decade.

The failure of AOL-Time-Warner demonstrates that even the biggest companies are vulnerable to competition if there is open entry into the marketplace. AOL-Time-Warner failed because consumers left them for competitors offering lower prices and/or better quality.

Corporate mergers and “hostile” takeovers can promote economic efficiency by removing inefficient management and boards of directors. These managers and board members often work together to promote their own interests instead of generating maximum returns for investors by providing consumers with affordable, quality products. Thus, laws making it difficult to launch a "hostile" takeover promote inefficient use of resources and harm investors, workers, and consumers.

Chicago Tribune - ‎Apr 26, 2016‎Swift, the financial messaging system used by 11,000 banks throughout the world, admitted this week that it's vulnerable to hackers if they penetrate its member financial institutions. It shouldn't be major news: Thieves go where the money is, and more ...

The Market Oracle - ‎Apr 26, 2016‎Swift, the vital global financial network that western financial services companies, institutions and banks use for all payments and transfer billions of dollars every day, warned its customers yesterday evening that it was aware of cyber fraud and a ...

Right-to-work laws prohibit businesses and unions from reaching agreements that require all workers, not just union members, to pay union dues

Wisconsin’s so-called “right-to-work” law, championed by Republican governor Scott Walker as he was mounting his run for president, was struck down on Friday as violating the state constitution.

Wisconsin’s attorney general, Brad Schimel, also a Republican, promised to appeal against the decision and said he was confident it would not stand. Schimel has not made a decision on whether to seek an immediate suspension of the ruling while the appeal is pending, spokesman Johnny Koremenos said.

“We are confident Wisconsin’s freedom-to-work law is constitutional and will ultimately be upheld,” Walker wrote on Twitter.

Three unions filed the lawsuit last year shortly after Walker signed the bill into law. So-called right-to-work laws prohibit businesses and unions from reaching agreements that require all workers, not just union members, to pay union dues. Twenty-four other states have such laws.

The unions argued that Wisconsin’s law was an unconstitutional seizure of union property since unions now must extend benefits to workers who don’t pay dues. Dane County circuit judge William Foust agreed.

Occasionally politicians slip up and reveal their true intentions. In D.C., this is called "committing candor." While indirectly discussing his administration's effort in the courts to force Apple to develop a software key to unlock iPhones, President Barack Obama recently admitted this battle is not just about a single terrorist's iPhone in San Bernardino, California. ... Continued...

Refugees from different countries attend an information session in Berlin in late February.
(Carsten Koall / Getty Images)

Erik Kirschbaum

With a one-way ticket home to Iraq in his hands and seven months' worth of frustration over intransigent German bureaucracy in his heart, Gazwan Abdulhasen Abdulla gave up on his dreams of a better life in Europe.
Homesick
...

“There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all.” — Justice Antonin Scalia (1936-2016)

After the San Bernardino massacre on Dec. 2, 2015, the FBI lawfully acquired the cellphone of one of the killers and persuaded a federal judge to authorize its agents to access the contents of the phone. Some of what it found revealed that the killer used the phone to communicate with victims and perhaps confederates and even innocents who unwittingly provided material assistance.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Rand Paul has released latest edition of "The Waste Report," which is an ongoing project cataloguing egregious examples of waste within the U.S. government.

The latest edition highlights a $30,000 study, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), that researched the prevalence of entrepreneurs, in the country of Uganda, seeking to generate revenue for their business through sports betting.

Every year, it is estimated that sports betting generates as much as a $1 trillion in revenue worldwide.[1] Maybe you have even put a few dollars down on a game yourself, but even if that is not the case, the federal

LEXINGTON — As the U.S. Department of Justice seeks to force Apple to comply with an FBI order to help the agency crack an encrypted iPhone used by one of the attackers in the San Bernardino, Calif., massacre, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul says the tech giant should not have to comply.

Apple has strongly opposed the court-ordered request from the FBI to open the phone, which is linked to the attack in California that killed 14 people Dec. 2.

“What’s extraordinary about this warrant, or this court order, is that they’re asking Apple to devise a way into the phone when no such system exists currently,” Paul said. “So this would be an extraordinary warrant because they’re compelling Apple to become part of the police force and think up something new.”

Paul warned that some think that the move would be a violation of First Amendment rights, and he said that “we ought to think twice before we decide we’re going to be compelling phone companies to come up with things like this.”

Kentucky’s junior U.S. senator also warned that “weakening” the codeware by creating a backdoor into the phone would make more people vulnerable to attack by “hackers and thieves.”

Bill Clinton had a larger audience in Riviera Beach, Florida Monday, courtesy of Palm Beach County taxpayers.
A producer for my radio show, Bethany Bowra, was on hand at the event at the Port of Palm Beach Cruise Terminal and provided this account:I was standing on the corner outside the Bill Clinton event in Riviera Beach, Florida, on Monday, when a school bus labeled “Palm Beach County District Schools #0253” pulled in filled with students wearing band uniforms and cheerleading outfits. The kids got off the bus at the front of the event with their instruments and the bus left, only to return a few moments
...

So they want to pull down statues of the racist Theodore Roosevelt. He was also an imperialist, so I'm all for it! Socialist Woodrow Wilson was just as racist, and his statues need to go too!
But it would be a shame to leave all those pedestals empty. So the answer is obvious! The libertarian Calvin Coolidge WASN'T A RACIST! Yeah, the press and the Education Mafia will hate it, because he...

How long can this madness continue before the dam breaks?
How long can the dogs of war remain chained when people in every country are trying like hell to loose them on the world?
How long can the financial house of cards stay afloat before reality sets in an the world has to deal with the decisions central banks have made?
How long can this country stay 'together' when it is clear to...

I'm just posting a poll to try to gauge people's support if I were to run for state representative. I live in Kansas where they just passed a massive 1.2 billion tax increase. My representative is a liberal Republican who voted for that tax increase. He and all of the other big government Republicans in Kansas need to be replaced in the next election. I know that in the past people on this...

2016 Presidential Election

Donald Trump is a candidate of the Feds.(1) (4/30/2016)
I say so because in this campaign there is a lot of comedy show done by S.S.G..
Those rallies, either for trump or against him, have the purpose to raise his popularity.
What is S.S.G.?

First five minutes of the video he gets through the candidates individually, then he does two minutes of election predictions, then he goes onto other things (including Ali). Pretty interesting.
"I'm a Ron Paul guy" Video here:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?496584-Presidential-Candidate-Astrologies&p=6257738&viewfull=1#post6257738

Lincoln Memorial vandalized with explicit graffiti
http://abcnews.go.com/US/lincoln-memorial-vandalized-explicit-graffiti/story?id=49233539
The Lincoln Memorial was vandalized with bright-red graffiti early Tuesday morning at around 4.30 a.m.
Officials with the National Park Service (NPS) said the red spray paint appears to state “ law” on one of the memorial’s columns overlooking the...

From Drudge;
Florida prisons — all of them — on lockdown
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article167756842.html
All of Florida’s 97,000 state prison inmates are on lockdown — and will remain confined to their dorms at least through the weekend — in response to unspecified threats about potential rioting, officials from the Florida Department of Corrections...

It seems like Trump does not know how to retreat, always on the offensive.
Latest victim is SC GOP Senator who is widely respected among neocons including many left wingers.
Perhaps it is attacks like these that have made even DGP bit too scared to criticize Trump, something he used to do without fear when Hillary had wide lead over Trump in MSM polls. In all fairness, Trump had...

Gold Chart

Silver Chart

Economics News & Discussion

CLICK HERE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION
I've had multiple requests to create a unified location for my charts, predictions, forecasts, etc. so here it is.
I'll update the thread whenever I'm trading. You can chat w/ me live at the btce trollbox.
Best of luck my friends!

August 15 – A Red Letter Day
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/august-15-red-letter-day/
This is August 15. Perhaps you know the historical importance of this very date more than a generation ago.
Well, it marks the beginning of Woodstock, “three days of peace, love, and music,” in 1969. The music festival drew 400,000 people – and many more who would later claim to have been there!
...

Perfect and imperfect diamonds are now being created in labs. There is no way to tell them from the real thing.
Diamonds will become rhinestones. The diamond as a store of wealth or medium of exchange is over, they are now a fiat currency.
Fortunately, gold can not be created in a lab...

Bitcoin Chart

Living Free and Healthy

Weeding Out Vaccine Toxins: MMR, Glyphosate, and the Health of a Generation
by Dr. Stephanie Seneff
Health Impact News
Glyphosate, often sold under the brand name “Roundup,” is the most widely used weed killer in the U.S. Glyphosate is a “non-selective herbicide,” which means it kills many plants, not just weeds. It kills them by interfering with the production of critical proteins...

What hippocratic oath? Florida pediatricians refuse to see unvaccinated children
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/pediatricians-in-florida-refuse-to-see-un-vaccinated-kids_082017
Some Florida parents got a bit of a surprise when they were kicked out of pediatric firms for having unvaccinated children.
Even though the decision to not vaccinate is growing among those who read the vaccine...

Education & Thought Power

And modern day "money masters" have replaced past centuries' old fashioned slave masters?
Granted such a modern day political slave-master relationing is not as obvious and horrific as were low tech olden times oppressions.

America is Dead. Liberty is not popular. People do not and are not interested in understanding freedom.
Ron Paul gave me hope that maybe just maybe freedom was still alive in this nation. Idk if that hope still exists in my heart. I still believe in it more than anything but I feel as I would be more successful beating my head against a brick wall. There are actually people calling for...

If you want to go back to watch Scott Baio's speech, you can. It was only about four and a half minutes. He concluded with the line, "Let's make America America again."
This is a sentence that makes me want to ask, "What is America?" If our Founding Fathers were here today and scripting a return to America, what would that look like to you?

Part One: The Bogus Business Plot.
Part Two: The Bogus Business Plot.
In the previous installment, we learned that FDR and his closest advisors had many deep and longstanding business and social ties to the DuPont family and JP Morgan, Jr., two of the key figures allegedly behind the so-called “business plot” to usurp FDR’s presidential powers. The most telling of these is the...